Immaginario e realtà dei percorsi storico-educativi legati all'infanzia. A proposito di una recente ricerca

This critical note deals with issues analytically brought out by a recent work of Francesca Borruso. Through the analysis of different types of historical sources, such as autobiographies, lullabies, movies or narrations, the author describes the transformations of the real childhood from the XVIIIth to the XXth century. In fact, children’s actual living conditions often disagree on what pedagogical textbooks report. Above all, the author points out five main subjects: middle-class families’ metamorphosis, the gender question and the maternal role, the importance of oral sources, violence against children and the childhood imaginary in movies productions.